


Posttraumatic Stress Disorder 309.81 (F43.10)

by SunandShadowBoth



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9328121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunandShadowBoth/pseuds/SunandShadowBoth
Summary: The following criteria apply to adults, adolescents and children older than six years of age:PTSD criteria and how the Avengers fulfill them.





	1. A1. Tony Stark directly experiencing traumatic event(s)

**Author's Note:**

> A. Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence in one or more of the following ways:

  1. _**Directly experiencing the traumatic events:**_



 

He wanted, desperately, to talk to her one last time. The tiny image on of her face on his monitor made his chest tighten, squeezing to an unbearable breathlessness that made him want to scream. 

She wasn’t going to answer, and he wasn’t going to live. Two facts that had barely brushed his mind, two undeniable truths that were occurring, were happening, were not going away and somehow he found the ability to ignore that and marvel at just how interesting the edges of the portal were. If he, Tony Stark, had created such a thing, it would not look nearly so messy. It would be straight lines and efficiency and look like it was meant to be there. This thing, too out of place. It had to go. 

And what was with this nuke? What did those assholes think they were doing? The team had this under control, of course they did, because they were Steve Fucking Rogers, and Thor, and the Hulk and Katniss and of course the lovely Miss Romanoff whom seemed suddenly so desperately small next to the woman on his screen. Please. She just needed to answer. 

But she didn’t, and he went through into the inky blackness that was his soul summoning him for reckoning and he was weightless. The call failed. So did Jarvis. Silence was his enemy, the thing he feared most and here it was, pressing in on him from all sides, suffocatingly thick. He let the nuke go, let it propel forward as it had been fighting him to do until he watched it explode with a dispassionate sense of finality. He thought it would feel more heroic. Thought that seeing the end of those horrifying creatures and their destruction would be so much more satisfying but instead it was terrifying and he wasn’t ready, she hadn’t answered. 

He loved her, he just wanted her to know. Would they tell her? Rogers would, even if he didn’t believe it. Rogers was just that kind of guy. Tony wished, sometimes, that he was that kind of guy. Would Rogers have saved the entire world and sacrificed his life? Oh wait. Yes. He’d done that. 

And now so had Tony. Lord, he hoped his legacy was more fun than Cap’s had been. He wanted to be known for his parties too. His philanthropy, and his good deeds, but also the mind bending, world ending ragers. 

It was getting cold now. Hard to breathe. How much time had passed? Jarvis wouldn’t tell him, his monitor was dead, and so was he. 

He didn’t… he didn’t want to die. Didn’t think this through. He saved everyone but it was so much worse than he imagined, so much more lonely and absolute. 

The explosion gently propelled him backwards and he went, no say in the matter. 

He took one slow breath, and then another, and then he realized it was more than cold, it was freezing, and his eyes hurt so he shut them and the darkness became something permanent, something he couldn’t escape and then there was nothing. 

It was only for a few minutes, a few blank, empty minutes but it was eternity. He lived out another life in that time, another life where he was a good person, kind, whole and someone not himself. 

And then he was waking up on the streets of New York, the team leaning over him and he realized that he wasn’t dead. He could call her. She might actually answer. 

He’d been dead. Felt himself go. And now he wasn’t. Somehow, it took much longer to convince himself he was living that it had to convince himself to die and he didn’t know what part of that sentence he was really afraid of. 

 


	2. 2A. Clint Witnessing In Person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A. Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one or more of the following ways:

  1. Witnessing in person, the events as it occurred to others.



He’s on the boat. 

Could leave. Pretend he’d never heard the desperate cries, pretend he’s not a superhero, an avenger, a decent human being, but he knows that it’s not a choice so he steps off the ship and back onto the death trap. 

He jogs, should go faster but he’s tired, so tired. He’ll get there, he’ll make it, they won’t leave without him, but at the thought he makes his steps just a little wider, just a little more hurried, just enough to ease the panic that’s slowly building. 

He gets there, to the kid. Checks to make sure he’s okay, but he’s crying and wailing and Clint doesn’t speak fucking Sokovian. Why couldn’t he have a superpower like linguistics? Or, maybe, he should just keep one of the Maximoff kids on a leash. They could follow after him and translate. Teach Pietro not to be such a smug little bastard. 

Finally he just picks the sobbing kid up because Clint is absolutely useless at calming someone who can’t understand his halfway sarcastic pleas for quiet and when he stands he realizes that yes, those gunshots were getting closer, that they were coming from above and he had exactly zero seconds to save himself and the kid. 

This weird sort of cost analysis passes through his brain, and he knows he has to save the kid, he has to try, even if the bullets are too high caliber for them not to just tear through his own body. There’s a chance, a small one, that the boy makes it out alive. So he blinks and he breathes and he turns to put his back to the bullets. 

There’s a strong wind, something ruffles his hair and then pain flares. He thinks that this is it, that he’s dying but when the world rights itself he realizes that there isn’t enough agony for this to be death, it’s too small and too close to his hip to be detrimental and besides, there should definitely have been more than one. 

He’s confused, bewildered, wondering how in the hell he managed to avoid all of them when he turns and sees and his heart drops. 

The kid, not the one he saved, but the pain in his ass speedster with a mouth just looks at him with those watering eyes and says “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”

He hadn’t and _oh god_ he wished he had because he would have tied him to a chair and left him in the Avenger’s compound, he would have forced him to stay with his sister, he would have never let them be a part of this-

He wants to say so many things but none of them come out as Pietro collapses, riddled with the bullets that should have been in Clint’s body and not in the skin of this teenager, of this child who should have been an amazing avenger, who should have lived to take care of his sister, who shouldn’t be staring up at him with a blank expression that he never wanted to see on anyone, ever. 

It’s like his consciousness just kind of detaches and he watches Cap come up and check to see if Pietro is alive, to see if he’s breathing, but Clint knows. He already knows that he’s dead because he watched it, he felt it, and he can’t do a damned thing as Steve picks the kid up without a word. Clint snatches up the boy he came to rescue, trailing after, pretending like it’s okay, like he’s okay. Steve and Thor, they had to be feeling the same, but the small selfish part of him whispers that it's so much worse for him, that he knew the kid better, that he was responsible for them. He knows it's not true, knows everyone will mourn but in that moment the world is kind of off kilter and he can’t tell if he’s actually taking in oxygen. 

He makes it onto the ship and a medical worker realizes he’s bleeding. He is, he is bleeding, but it’s not visible, not really, and he pushes the guy away. He’s fine. He is, it’s just been a long day and he’s so tired and he doesn’t want to ever forget what Pietro’s face looks like because that’s the face of a kid who sacrificed everything for a man he hardly knew and Clint hopes he can be that good someday. He just really, really hopes he can be. 


End file.
